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FLORIDA PREMIERE
Wednesday, May 02, 2007 7:45 PM
Directed by Juan Carlos Claver
Spain, 2006, video, 98 min
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Ticket Availability
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As the powerful based-on-a-true-story Electroshock opens, we see how Elvira is saved from a suicide attempt, only to be charged later with the murder of another woman. But as the film, set in Franco Spain, flashes back to 1972 – to a time in which homosexuality was thought to be an aberration and was persecuted by law – we slowly discover that Elvira could not have killed this woman, a fellow teacher named Pilar, because Elvira loved her.
As the narrative flashes backward and forward we bear witness to Elvira and Pilar’s love story. A love that had to surmount many obstacles - the prejudices LGBT people suffered, the breaching of the Hippocratic oath by homophobic doctors, and Pilar’s mother, a woman so intolerant of her daughter’s sexuality she had her committed to an institution and approved electroshock therapy, which is depicted graphically, to "cure" her daughter’s "condition". Despite the mental trauma and years of incarceration, Elvira and Pilar would reunite several years later, with help from another family member.
"Electroshock" will make you appreciate the freedoms we have gained along the way but is also a celebration of love triumphing against many odds; in the end, these women’s loving promise to be together is really where the movie commences. In Spanish with English subtitles.
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